Police forces from 11 provinces were involved in the operation to break up a massive network that stole, bought and sold children in Henan province in central China and other provinces.

Revealing one of the biggest busts of its kind in years, officials said on Saturday that the group had targeted children in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces in China's southwest and transported them to other provinces for sale.

The exact date of the police operation, which was the result of a six-month investigation, is not known.

Child abduction is a major problem in China, where such police operations have become regular occurrences as authorities crack down on child trafficking.

Strict family planning laws, a traditional preference for boys, ignorance of the law, poverty and illicit profits drive a thriving market in babies and children.

September 25, 2013

The US Air Force and the Boeing aerospace and defense corporation
announced they have successfully converted a retired F-16 into a drone.
It is now possible for fighter jets to fly supersonic speeds, land, and
operate normally without a pilot on board.
Boeing announced Tuesday that modified versions of the F-16
Fighting Falcon will operate as a QF-16 Full Scale Aerial Target
for use in Air Force training practices. Last week, two Air Force
pilots controlled the first successful flight from the ground
station at Florida’s Tydall Air Force Base.
The maiden flight departed from the runway as normal and
completed a series of simulated maneuvers in the air over the
Gulf of Mexico, surpassing the speed of sound and landing
safely.
“It was a little different to see it without anyone in it, but
it was a great flight all the way around,” said US Air Force
Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Inman, the commander of the 82nd Aerial
targets Squadron. “It’s a replication of current, real world
situations and aircraft platforms they can shoot as a target. Now
we have a 9G capable, highly sustainable aerial
target.”
The Air Force has maintained that QF-16s will only be used in
training exercises when pilots are completing dogfight
simulations in the air. The planes remain capable of being flown
by an on board pilot though, and a bomb will be placed on board
in the event that an unmanned plane needs to be destroyed.
While only six QF-16s have been developed, the revamped F-16s
will replace the Q-4 drones currently used in training exercises
after a number of those crashed in Florida.
“Currently, the majority of aircraft parts for the QF-4 are no
longer being manufactured,” Inman told the Panama City News
Herald. “The QF-16 provides a complete supply chain that is
still active and will maintain replacement part availability for
our entire aerial target fleet.”

September 23, 2013

Hundreds of protesters gathered in a North Dakota town on Sunday to
speak out against plans by an American Nazi group to buy up property and
take over the local government in an effort to build a bastion against
diversity.
About 300 protesters, including some 200 Native Americans from
nearby reservations, gathered outside the Leith City Hall where
Jeff Schoep, leader of the National Socialist Movement presented
his plans for turning the tiny North Dakota town –
population 24 – into a segregated place where whites can live
among themselves.

Group
of protesters, including native American Indians, protest against the
National Socialist Movement (NSM) in Leith, North Dakota. (Sunday, Sept.
22, 2013. Image from flickr.com user@uneditedmedia)

According to Schoep, however, the plan for a single-race town in
Leith is part of a much broader plan.

"We have to start
somewhere," he told Reuters. "So if we start in small towns and spread
out from there, it's sort of a test ground in that sense, where
if we're able to get off the ground here, then we're able to get
off the ground in other places."

Members of the Grant County Sheriff's Department, together with
deputies from several nearby counties, were on hand. The North
Dakota Highway Patrol also appeared on the scene in riot gear,
but no violence was reported, officials said.

However, the demonstrators, some of whom had traveled miles to be
in Leith, were vocal in their condemnation of the plan.

September 22, 2013

The US is pushing Russia into approving a UN resolution that would
allow for military intervention in Syria, in exchange for American
support of Syria’s accession to OPCW, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov has said.“Our American partners are starting to blackmail us: ‘If
Russia does not support a resolution under Chapter 7, then we
will withdraw our support for Syria’s entry into the Organization
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). This is a
complete departure from what I agreed with Secretary of State
John Kerry',” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told
Channel 1's Sunday Time program.
Chapter 7 of the UN charter would allow for potential military
intervention in Syria.

The head of Russia’s Foreign Ministry went on to say he was
surprised by the West’s “negligent” approach to the
conflict.
“Our partners are blinded by an ideological mission for regime
change,” said Lavrov. “They cannot admit they have made
another mistake.”
Slamming the West’s intervention in Libya and Iraq, the foreign
minister stated that military intervention could only lead to a
catastrophe in the region. Moreover, he stressed that if the West
really was interested in a peaceful solution to the conflict that
has raged for over two years, they would now be pushing for
Syria’s entry into the OPCW in the first place, not for the
ouster of President Bashar Assad.
“I am convinced that the West is doing this to demonstrate
that they call the shots in the Middle East. This is a totally
politicized approach,” said Lavrov.
The Russian foreign minister pointed out that in the case of a
military scenario, militants would come to power and Syria would
no longer be a secular state. Up to three quarters “of these
guys are Jihadists,” including the most radical groups such
as Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant, who
want to create an Islamic Caliphate in Syria and in neighboring
territories, Lavrov said.
“If our western partners think at least two steps ahead, they
cannot but understand it,” Lavrov noted.
As to why the West would want that, Moscow has so far received no
clear answer, but hears “mantras” on the necessity to promote
democracy and protect human rights, said the minister. That is
important, but “responsible politicians should be guided not only
by that. Not to care about stability in a key world region is
absolutely irresponsible,” he added.
According to Lavrov, some experts alleged that “someone is
attempting to create a guided chaos” in the region for their
own benefits. However, the foreign minister said he personally
sees no possible advantages that Western countries would gain if
they were behind moves to stir up instability.
“There’s only an attempt to grasp a straw, and turn a blind
eye to the fact that the world is changing and becoming
multipolar,” Lavrov concluded.

Lavrov harked back to last year’s Geneva accord which was agreed
upon by the international community, including Russia and the US.
However, when the resolution went to the Security Council the US
demanded that Chapter 7 be included.
“History is repeating itself. Once again in Geneva an
agreement has been reached which does not contain any mention of
Chapter 7. But the Security Council wants to redo the document in
their own way to include it.”
He called on the West to observe international law and stop
writing resolutions motivated by their “geopolitical
ambitions.”

September 21, 2013

Venezuela has sent a letter to the UN chief asking him to take
measures against the United States over the denial of visas for some
members of its delegation who are scheduled to attend the UN General
Assembly in New York.
The letter sent by Venezuela’s ambassador to the UN, Samuel
Moncada, requests that the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon take
action in response to the apparent denial of visas, which
President Maduro has said seems intended to “create logistical
obstacles to impede” next week’s visit.
Venezuela further requests that the UN “demand that the
government of the US abide by its international obligations”
as host of the 68th UN General Assembly.
On Thursday, President Maduro first raised the issue of the
apparent denial of visas to members of his country’s delegation,
saying that “we are not traveling to New York as tourists on
vacation…we are going to a UN function. I cannot accept that they
have denied a visa to Major General Wilmer Barrientos” and
indicated a similar situation for another member of his
cabinet.
Tension between the countries spiked on Thursday when Venezuela’s
foreign minister, Elias Jaua, told media outlets that the US
denied a plane carrying Maduro entrance into its airspace. The
aircraft was en route to China. Washington later granted the approval, stating that Venezuela’s
request had not been properly submitted. Jaua had denounced the
move as “an act of aggression.”
Citing the incident, Bolivian President Evo Morales said he will
file a lawsuit against the US government for
crimes against humanity.
“I would like to announce that we are preparing a lawsuit
against Barack Obama to condemn him for crimes against
humanity,” Morales said Thursday at a press conference in the
Bolivian city of Santa Cruz. He branded the US president as a
“criminal” who violates international law.

The Bolivian president also suggested that the members of CELAC
withdraw their ambassadors from the US to send a message to the
Obama Administration. As an additional measure, he said he will
call on the member nations of the Bolivarian Alliance for the
Americas to boycott the upcoming meeting of the UN General
Assembly. Members of the alliance include Antigua and Barbuda,
Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Saint Lucia.
“The US cannot be allowed to continue with its policy of
intimidation and blockading presidential flights,” stressed
Morales.

September 20, 2013

Russia has every reason to believe that the use of chemical weapons
in a Damascus suburb in August was an adroit and smart provocation,
President Vladimir Putin has said.
“We have every grounds to believe that it was a provocation.
Of course, it was adroit and smart, but, at the same time,
primitive in terms of technical performance. They took an old
Soviet-made missile, which was taken out of service in the Syrian
army long ago. It was most important to have ‘made in the USSR’
written [on the missile],” Putin said at the Valday
discussion forum on Thursday.
The Russian president pointed out that the August 21st attack in
Damascus was not the first time chemical weapons had been used in
Syria.
“But why haven’t other cases been investigated?” he asked.
The chemical weapon attack must be thoroughly investigated and
those behind it must be identified, Putin told the Valday Club
meeting in Russia’s Novgorod Region.
“No matter how difficult it might be, but if in the end we
manage to answer the question… as to who committed that crime –
and that was certainly a crime – the next step will follow. Then,
together with our colleagues from the United Nations Security
Council we will have to define the level of responsibility of
those who committed the crime,” Putin said.
He stressed that measures like military strikes cannot solve
every international issue, while should also be brought to the
UNSC rather than discussed in the US Congress.
“This would be a strike on the world order, not Syria,”
the Russian leader said.

September 19, 2013

UN inspectors ignored evidence on chemical weapons use in Syria
secretly passed to them by Damascus, said Russia’s Deputy Foreign
Minister in an exclusive interview to RT. That is why the UN report is
biased and needs reinvestigation, he said.“The Syrian authorities have conducted their own sampling and
investigation, analysis in terms of possible evidence of the
rebels being responsible for the tragic episodes both on August
21, but beyond that also on August 22, 23 and 24,” Sergey
Ryabkov told RT's Maria Finoshina, who caught up with him during
his visit to Damascus to discuss these allegations.
“This is new material - new material for us. But this is not
already completely new material for the UN,” Ryabkov
specified, revealing that there were actually several chemical
attacks in Syria in August and that the UN inspectors, headed by
Swedish scientist Dr. Ake Salstrom, were informed about this, but
ignored the information in their report.
“This material was discreetly handed over to Ake Salstrom, the
head of the UN mission of experts here [in Syria] which came to
investigate the Ghouta incidents. Salstrom was asked to look into
it and eventually factor this new evidence into the final report.
It never happened in fact,” Ryabkov told RT. “This is one
of the reasons why we criticize the speed with which the report
was released… and also an incomplete content of this report,”
he said.
Moscow wants the UN inspectors to return to Syria and continue
investigating in order to determine who was responsible for the
chemical attack.

September 18, 2013

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has postponed a state visit to
Washington in response to the US spying on her communications with top
aides. Rousseff is demanding a full public apology from President Obama.
Barack Obama spoke with Rousseff on Monday in an attempt to
persuade her into following through with the trip, the Brazilian
president's office said, according to AP.

Brazil’s TV Globo reported that the call between the two
presidents lasted for about 20 minutes. Obama and Rousseff
discussed revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA)
spied on the Brazilian leader’s phone calls and emails. The two
presidents then “jointly” agreed to cancel the meeting, Globo
reported, citing the presidential office.

The Brazilian government said in a statement that "the
conditions are not suitable to undertake this visit on the agreed
date." It expressed hope that the conflict will be resolved
“properly” and the trip will happen "as soon as
possible."

The state visit was initially scheduled for October 23. The Obama
administration has confirmed that the visit was canceled.

"The president has said that he understands and regrets the
concerns disclosures of alleged US intelligence activities have
generated in Brazil and made clear that he is committed to
working together with President Rousseff and her government in
diplomatic channels to move beyond this issue as a source of
tension in our bilateral relationship," said White House
spokesman Jay Carney.

September 17, 2013

Hello comrades. For two months I've been heavily drinking, and I come back to dissaray and squandering. Therefore now I take control over this blog. Don't worry, goverment approved comics are just as witty and funny.

Since I'm in charge, let's establish some ground rules
Rule 1 - Russian Federation is a glorious country with perfect goverment.
Rule 2 - USA is incredibly jealous of our glorious successes, and therefore must perish.
Rule 3 - Putin is the best leader this country ever had, and by denying that you shall be sent to gulag

That is all, I'll come up with more rules later as I'll get more drunk. GLORY TO RUSSIAN FEDERATION!